Chapter 10
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Clint freezes when she says his words, freezes in his spot a few feet away as she falls to the ground, arrow held out and shoulder bleeding and it takes a moment for him to spring into action. His words have been said again but he can’t think about that right now, needs to focus on her, on getting them somewhere safe. He moves quickly now, closes the distance between them and kneels down beside her. He is careful when he move her, doesn’t want to do any more damage to her than he already has, and he looks over the wound, needs to cover it before he moves her. It is easy tear off part of the jacket she is wearing and he doesn’t think she will mind too much since it is already ruined and he makes a makeshift bandage out of the cloth. He’ll bandage the wound properly later.
He looks quickly over the area after that, makes sure not to leave a trace of them and then gets her to his vehicle. Clint sets her down as gently as he can, makes sure to buckle her in and then gets in himself, starts to drive. It isn’t that far to the safe house, only takes a few minutes and he is gentle again when he takes her out, gets her inside quickly. There is only one bed here and he lays her down on it, gets what he needs to clean her up and bandage the wound. Clint gets to work quickly, cutting fabric away from the wound, will give her clean clothes when she wakes up. He doesn’t take off her shirt, wants to be polite though a part of him wants to see the words on her skin but he can wait for that. He gets the wound cleaned and bandaged better and then he moves a little bit away from her, looks at her closely now that he can.
Natasha is young, younger than him, and she seems so small on the bed right now, small and delicate. She doesn’t look like a trained killer laying there but Clint supposes to most people he doesn’t look that dangerous either and so her appearance shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. He just looks at her for a bit, thinks about how messy everything is or is going to be and he gets up and puts a blanket over her, needs to think a bit. She said his words, the words he thought he would never hear again, and he wanted to give her a chance even before she said this and he hopes she will take it. For now, he just leaves the room to check to make sure everything is secure and waits for her to wake up.
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Waking up injured is something Natasha is used to but she doesn’t recognize her surrounding this time. She is not laying in one of her safehouses, the sheets are not right, and she is not at a base, the lights are not bright enough and she looks around as she shifts so that she can gather her bearings a bit more. The room she is in is a bit bare, just the bed and a chair with some clothes on it and there are no windows, just two door ways, one opening into a hall and one that looks like it is to a bathroom. She looks down at her wound now and it is bandaged up, her shirt cut up near it and she wonders why he didn’t just take it off but she will think about that later. Right now, she turns her attention to the door when she hears footsteps coming.
“Thought I would check on you. Wound is clean, I didn’t peak at anything but you can clean up more if you want. There are clothes there and I’m making some soup and coffee. I figure we should talk but might be easier if we have some food while we do so. Kitchen is just down this way when you’re ready. I’ll leave you to it. I’m Clint by the way.”
Barton is in the door way now, says all of that quickly and she is glad that he had already spoken because she can not imagine having all of that cut off of her. She looks at him for a moment before giving her own name.
“I’m Natasha.”
He gives her a brief smile and then turns and leaves. She gets up after just a moment. She cleans up and changes, looks over her skin but it is still bare right now, no words on it. They will probably show up soon, her skin there feels just a little tight and that is the sign that they will be appearing soon. She has spent so much time ignoring those words that it still feels a bit strange to think that they were spoken just a few hours earlier and she wonders if they will change when they come back but she has a feeling that they will stay the same. The other words change cause they were meeting each other the first time almost every time and there had been a few times when they had come back the same only to change again before their next meeting. Right now she pushes aside the thoughts of her other words and focuses on now, on what happened. Natasha is pretty sure from what she remembers of his reaction, she said his words as well and they are going to have to talk about it and so she puts on clothes that are slightly too big for her and then make her way out to the hallway.
The kitchen is not hard to find and she enters it as he is putting some soup into bowls and there is already two mugs on the small table there, with a little bowl and spoons near by. Barton moves to the table and as he does so, he looks over to her, gives her a little nod to one of the mugs.
“That one is yours, left it plain, have sugar if you want it. Promise nothing is poisoned. “
He says this and she just sits down and takes the coffee .
“I have a high tolerance for poison anyway.”
Barton looks over at her now, something like shock covering his features for just a moment before he sort of shrugs it off.
“That’s good I guess, probably better that you just don’t drink poison, like I said though, none of this is poisoned, can’t say it will be to your taste but not poisoned. “
He mutters all of this and Natasha just decides to take a drink of the coffee. It is strong, obviously cheap and he probably put to many ground for the amount he made but it is warm and she has had worse. Still, he did say there was sugar and there is no reason to drink it so strong. She gets a little bit of the sugar, stirs it in as Barton places a bowl and new spoon in front of her, takes his own and sits down across from her. There are just a few minutes of quiet now as they both take a few bites of soup and then Barton speaks again, breaking the quiet.
“Sorry about cutting your shirt and tearing your jacket, and about the whole shooting you thing. I have some pain killers if you need them.”
The wound hurts a bit but not so much that she wants to take something for it so she just shakes her head.
“I’m alright, I have a high tolerance for pain.”
She says it simply and he just goes back to his soup now so she does so as well. She has had worse wounds but this one may scar, will probably scar if she does not go back to a base and maybe it can be a mark of a new start. Natasha can’t go back to where she was and her second set of words have been said and maybe this is what she needs, a chance to start fresh. She doesn’t say anything about it right now, just keeps eating and after a few more minutes, they are finished with their bowls and Barton takes his to the small sink there and she follows, places hers there as well and she goes back to her seat at the table but Barton stays standing, is looking at her now and he speaks after just a moment.
“I want you to know I meant what I said about giving you a chance, wanted to give you a chance before you said anything to me.”
He says this and she asks a question she has been wondering now.
“Why? Why offer me a chance? I assume your orders were to kill.”
He winces slightly at her last words but she sees no sense in hiding that truth right now and he answers her question after just a moment.
“ I watched you, you weren’t cruel when you didn’t need to be and I don’t think you were ever given a choice as to what you were going to be. Everybody deserves choices.”
His words sound truthful, she can’t see any lie in his face and she was taught how to see the lies. Barton’s words make her think about words spoken to her long ago, words spoken by her solider about choices and she wouldn’t choose back then. Now, she can choose and she gives a little nod and ask a question.
“What if SHIELD doesn’t want to give me a chance?”
Clint may want to offer her a choice but it isn’t his decision only. He might think he has choice but at the end of the day, he is still a weapon for SHIELD like she was for the red room even if he may not see himself as such. She is pretty sure that he doesn’t always get a choice in who he is aimed at and the may be consequences for him not taking the shot. He sort of shrugs a bit now.
“Then I will help you run away, run away from them myself if I have to. We may have a trump card though. I didn’t expect you to say what you did and we don’t have to do anything about it but I am going to have to tell SHIELD that you said my words. They said that they would respect the words and it will help give you a chance if you want to join SHIELD, start over.”
The red room had believed words to be a weakness, something that didn’t matter and part of that was because of how much importance other places would put on them. Natasha has heard that SHIELD is one of those places and maybe Barton is right and this is her chance to start something fresh. It is worth a chance and she needs to play this right, needs all the information available to her.
“Can I see them?”
She asks,has no reason to doubt that her words are on his skin but she still wants to see them. He hesitates for just a moment before giving a nod, moving a bit closer , and then lifting his shirt up. The words are there but they are strange looking, a little hard to read but Natasha can make the words out clearly enough.
“Have they always looked like that?”
She asks and there is another moment of hesitation and then he answers the question.
“They showed up like that.”
He is looking at her, almost like he is debating saying something else but he doesn’t, just lowers his shirt now. There is a moment of quiet and then he breaks it again .
“Can I see yours?”
It is a simple request but one she can not give him right now and she simply shakes her head. He has tensed up now, a flicker of disappointment or perhaps hurt or confusion passes over his face for a moment before he makes himself relax, speaks causally.
“Ok, that’s fine but they are going to ask about them at SHIELD, will want to confirm that we really are marked.”
He doesn’t understand her reason and she knows that she has to explain now, they need to come up with a game plan for what to do if the words have changed, need to make sure they both tell the same story. She will tell him about the marks, about how they might have changed, and she will need to mention the others as well but she knows she won’t tell him everything about them, can’t tell him about James, about her winter. He doesn’t need to know, they may be marked but she doesn’t trust him fully, not like she once trusted Winter, and she can’t share her loss with him. She takes a breath, prepares to share one truth and hide another and hopes she is making the right call.
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A stab of hurt went through Clint when she shook her head no when he asked to see her marks, hurt and confusion and maybe a little bit of anger and he makes himself push it down. She doesn’t have to show Clint if she doesn’t want to and it isn’t like he explained about his mark when she saw it, hasn’t told her yet that she isn’t the only one to say those words. He can’t bring himself to tell her about the soldier right now, settles for saying something else instead.
“Ok, that’s fine but they are going to ask about them at SHIELD, will want to confirm that we really are marked.”
He says this, has heard of words being faked before but Clint has no idea how it could happen right now. His words are not known to that many people, no reason for SHIELD to tell anyone, and Clint isn’t sure if the soldier even remembers saying them anymore so there is no reason to think that she would know his words before they met. Natasha is looking at him still, taking a breath and meeting his eyes and her words draw him away from his thoughts.
“I can’t show you the words cause they aren’t there right now.”
Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.
“What do you mean they aren’t there? They don’t fade or anything, don’t wash off.”
He says this and she looks amused for just a moment before she speaks again.
“They don’t wash off but they can be cut off, skin scrapped away and it will be clean for a little while.”
“Why would you cut them off?”
Clint has never heard of such a thing and he knows what skin being scrapped off feels like and he is a little horrified right now, is trying to wrap his mind around what she is saying.
“They are considered a distraction, weren’t supposed to matter. They would be cut off every few months, whenever they would come back.”
She says this, no lie in her voice and like it is just a fact and maybe for her it is. It makes Clint feels a bit sick as well as horrified now and he moves back to the chair and plops down as he asks another question.
“How many times have they been cut off?”
She sort of shrugs when she answers, a causal gesture and that somehow makes all of this worse, that she isn’t bothered by it, that talk of having her marks scrapped off, a part of her cut away is normal.
“I lost count after all, it was pretty routine. They should be back soon, it has been enough time since last time but they may not be the same words.”
“How do you know that they may not look the same?”
He asks, needs to know and she is quiet for a moment, like she is trying to decide what to say before she speaks.
“I have another set besides yours, met the person who said them a few times, they would change after each time.”
A pang goes through Clint with those words, a feeling he can’t quite put a name to but he tries to push it down. It shouldn’t matter that both of the people who have said his words have other words as well but it does, almost makes him feel like they aren’t really supposed to be his. He pushes the thought aside, is still going to help her, still going to help the solider if he can, even if they aren’t really just his and she speaks again, draws his attention away from his own thoughts.
“They don’t change anymore, won’t change anymore.”
There is a sort of finality in her words, a sense of loss and her face is hard to read right now. He wants to ask about it but she is getting up now, looking over at him and he says the only thing that he can think to say.
“I’m sorry.”
She looks taken aback by his words but gives a little nod after a moment.
“I think I’m going to lie down for a little bit more, we can talk about what to do if the words change later.”
Natasha is avoiding talking about this, Clint is pretty sure about that, but he isn’t going to try to force her to talk about any of this. He just gives a little nod now.
“Ok, I’ll clean up in here, let me know if you need anything.”
She gives a nod and a little upturn of her lips that almost looks like a smile and then leaves the room. Clint stays sitting for a moment longer before getting up to clean the small kitchen and to try to put off thinking about everything for a little bit.
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